Our sustainability history
One of our corporate principles is: “Business must serve people“. The people are first and foremost our employees as well as our customers/suppliers. We have formulated a new principle that now also includes our environmental responsibility:
“We are convinced that only companies whose actions are in harmony with the laws of nature will be able to compete in the future in the long term”.
True to the motto “Acting is like talking, only cooler“, we have implemented the following measures to put our corporate principles into practice:
CO2 avoidance activities bear fruit
In 2021, we continued to focus on improving our carbon footprint. The measures taken, such as the further electrification of the vehicle fleet and the elimination of beverage deliveries, have helped us avoid around 10.3 metric tons of CO2 this year. This means that we avoided around one ton more CO2 than we emitted last year.
Big steps in e-mobility
The company’s own charging station, which could previously only be used by the company fleet, was opened to the public in August 2021. SFS thus offers all e-car drivers in the area the opportunity to charge.
At the same time, two more internal combustion vehicles in the company fleet were replaced with electric cars in October ’21 and January ’22. Thus, another big step towards sustainability is taken and CO2 savings of about 7.55 tons per year are avoided.
Installation of the
Grohe Blue Home
A new Blue Home armature from Grohe was installed. Thus, in the future, all drinking water in the company will come from the tap. This eliminates beverage deliveries, as well as emissions from bottles and the like, and saves approximately 390kg of CO2 annually.
Green electricity from Wuppertal
Since June 2020, we have also been marketing our self-produced electricity via the Tal.Markt power exchange.
Interested parties can purchase the electricity that we do not need ourselves from us via this power exchange.
Resource Conservation Certificate
As part of our ongoing efforts to reduce our ecological footprint as part of our ISO 14001 certification,
we were once again able to reduce our packaging costs despite an increase in the volume of shipments.
Fridays for Future
We strongly support the climate protection demands of Entrepreneurs4Future and Fridays for Futures (the measures taken so far by politicians, among others, are not sufficient to achieve sustainable economic activity in an intact environment in the future) and underline this with the following contributions to climate protection.
Avoidance of emissions in the mobility sector
In 2019, a company car was abolished; the employee receives a monthly public transport ticket instead. This saves us approximately 0.5 tonnes of CO2.
Business trips are preferably made by train. By using the long-distance transport of our customer Deutsche Bahn, no CO2 emissions have been generated here since 2018.
We compensate for unavoidable CO2 emissions outside our location (e.g. through business air travel) with corresponding donations to Atmosfair. We currently charge €100 per tonne of CO2. We are aware that offsetting is only the second best way to avoid CO2. However, Atmosfair supports climate protection projects in other countries. In addition, with this measure we avoid the externalisation of costs, which is still widespread in relation to CO2 emissions.
Our vehicle fleet
Since 2019, new company cars have only been purchased as hybrid or electric vehicles.
The aim here is that at least the journeys to our employees’ place of work should be electric. Here, too, the energy required comes from renewable sources. This measure has reduced the CO2 emissions of one vehicle by an average of 15% in 2019.
CO2 neutral own value chain
Our own value chain (production and administration) has been CO2 neutral since 2018. We obtain our electricity from our own photovoltaic system, which produces more electricity than we need ourselves, or from renewable electricity from local suppliers via the regional Tal.Markt electricity exchange when the sun does not shine or shines less. In this way, we contribute to strengthening the regional electricity markets. Furthermore, we use modern energy-saving techniques in our building: our geothermal heat pump also runs on renewable electricity and the lighting is presence-controlled.
The resulting CO2 savings amount to 15 tonnes based on the electricity mix D 2018.
Our employees
A good work-life balance is considered the key to a satisfied life. We offer an environment in which the high demands of the working world and private interests are brought into a healthy balance. For example, we have been offering our full-time employees an attractive employee profit-sharing scheme since 2017. When it comes to working hours, we have always ensured that the contractual working hours are not permanently exceeded.
Certified environmental management
Through our own product development, we ensure that our self-produced products do not require more resources than necessary and that less problematic raw materials are used preferentially. Our environmental management has been certified according to ISO 14001 since 2014.
Local sports support
SFS supports Sportfreunde Wuppertal Dönberg by regularly equipping them with jersey sets. Since 2016, we have been a VIP sponsor of the football club, which also has a deaf team, with extensive financial support. We are thus making a contribution to strengthening amateur football.
Our new
photovoltaic system
Our photovoltaic system, which was installed in 2010, produces more electricity than we consume. Thus, even as a small company, we contribute to climate protection with a CO2 saving of about 20 tonnes per year. Our purchased electricity also comes from renewable energy sources.
Substitution of PVC
Due to the problems with PVC-based films (HCL emission in case of fire, lack of dimensional and weather stability), which should not be underestimated, we began to increasingly switch our anti-slip and warning marking films to PVC-free substitutes in 2010. For example, we were one of the first manufacturers of polyester-based warning marking films. We have also converted our very successful Safety-Floor SG1 anti-slip coating to this technology.
Our suppliers
Most of our suppliers are based in Europe, which means that the CO2 emissions of the freight at reference level are significantly lower than for comparable purchases outside Europe.
Furthermore, manufacturers in Europe usually produce to higher environmental standards, which also reduces the CO2 emissions of our products. This also makes us less vulnerable to global risks.